PHYSICS 1B
Physics for Scientists and Engineers: Oscillations, Waves, Electric and Magnetic Fields
Description: Lecture/demonstration, four hours; discussion, one hour. Enforced requisites: course 1A, Mathematics 31B, 32A. Enforced corequisite: Mathematics 32B. Fluid mechanics, oscillation, mechanical waves, and sound. Electric charge, field and potential, capacitors, and dielectrics. Currents and resistance, direct-current circuits. P/NP or letter grading.
Units: 5.0
Units: 5.0
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Most Helpful Review
Professor Gekelman is a researcher, not a teacher. His method of approaching physics is the result of a life of calculations and complex simulations. He thinks on a whole different level than undergraduate students, believing that things like exponential functions dealing with imaginary numbers should immediately come to us after a normal high school education. He does not seem to understand that he has spent his whole life studying physics, whereas the majority of students taking his waves and electromagnetism class have only had roughly two years of experience. This gap between the professor's and student's knowledge base and the disregard of this gap by the teacher highly detracts from the learning experience of us students. On the other hand, Professor Gekelman is a very friendly man. He does care about his students, even if he doesn't know how to teach them. You could almost call him the nice grandfather type (btw the bruinwalk picture of him is waaay old). I'm sure if you go to his office hours he will definitely be willing to help you to understand the material from the textbook and his supplemental equations for the textbook. To sum it all up: Walter Gekelman does not know how to teach undergraduate students, but he will definitely be willing to help you if you go to his office hours. Other things: He has weekly quizzes, his Physics 1B class is curved, the midterms occasionally deal with his "supplementary" material, he teaches through slides, and he sometimes tries to derive equations on the blackboard (with lots of mistakes).
Professor Gekelman is a researcher, not a teacher. His method of approaching physics is the result of a life of calculations and complex simulations. He thinks on a whole different level than undergraduate students, believing that things like exponential functions dealing with imaginary numbers should immediately come to us after a normal high school education. He does not seem to understand that he has spent his whole life studying physics, whereas the majority of students taking his waves and electromagnetism class have only had roughly two years of experience. This gap between the professor's and student's knowledge base and the disregard of this gap by the teacher highly detracts from the learning experience of us students. On the other hand, Professor Gekelman is a very friendly man. He does care about his students, even if he doesn't know how to teach them. You could almost call him the nice grandfather type (btw the bruinwalk picture of him is waaay old). I'm sure if you go to his office hours he will definitely be willing to help you to understand the material from the textbook and his supplemental equations for the textbook. To sum it all up: Walter Gekelman does not know how to teach undergraduate students, but he will definitely be willing to help you if you go to his office hours. Other things: He has weekly quizzes, his Physics 1B class is curved, the midterms occasionally deal with his "supplementary" material, he teaches through slides, and he sometimes tries to derive equations on the blackboard (with lots of mistakes).
Most Helpful Review
Winter 2020 - Overall, I really enjoyed Gutperle's class. The workload was definitely manageable (only one homework assignment per week, which was usually ten problems), and the tests were difficult but also usually pretty fair since they are definitely doable if you have a strong grasp of the content. Gutperle does have the tendency to show us a bunch of proofs during class and then tell us that we don't really need to understand any of it, so I think having some more example problems would've been good. He does have us do conceptual Kudu problems during class which are really helpful for understanding thing conceptually, but those aren't really too similar to the homework problems, so having a little more guidance on the computational problems would be nice. Discussion isn't mandatory (I stopped attending after week 3 since I realized that I could just practice the discussion problems on my own, since they're posted), and in general, he's a good professor who clearly knows what he's doing and has some really fun demonstrations as well.
Winter 2020 - Overall, I really enjoyed Gutperle's class. The workload was definitely manageable (only one homework assignment per week, which was usually ten problems), and the tests were difficult but also usually pretty fair since they are definitely doable if you have a strong grasp of the content. Gutperle does have the tendency to show us a bunch of proofs during class and then tell us that we don't really need to understand any of it, so I think having some more example problems would've been good. He does have us do conceptual Kudu problems during class which are really helpful for understanding thing conceptually, but those aren't really too similar to the homework problems, so having a little more guidance on the computational problems would be nice. Discussion isn't mandatory (I stopped attending after week 3 since I realized that I could just practice the discussion problems on my own, since they're posted), and in general, he's a good professor who clearly knows what he's doing and has some really fun demonstrations as well.
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Most Helpful Review
The material isn't that difficult, but his exams are tricky. The homework is a lot of work but counts for little. He's not the best professor, and he doesn't publish averages, so its hard to gauge where you are in the class before your final grade comes out. He's a very boring lecturer, and the homework and lectures are useless in preparing for exams.
The material isn't that difficult, but his exams are tricky. The homework is a lot of work but counts for little. He's not the best professor, and he doesn't publish averages, so its hard to gauge where you are in the class before your final grade comes out. He's a very boring lecturer, and the homework and lectures are useless in preparing for exams.
Most Helpful Review
Spring 2023 - Hauser is like if Corbin received love as a child. That is to say, he’s crazy about physics and a little unhinged (likes fire and explosions) but very sweet and charming. His tests are fair, most of the questions are taken from homework or lecture examples, and he genuinely wants his students to do well. One downside is his lectures are a little theoretical, and he mostly derives equations and sometimes gets confused when people ask questions. If you can get Rayner as your TA do so, he is the goat. Plan to attend lecture in person also, he has cool demonstrations that aren’t captured on the bruincast.
Spring 2023 - Hauser is like if Corbin received love as a child. That is to say, he’s crazy about physics and a little unhinged (likes fire and explosions) but very sweet and charming. His tests are fair, most of the questions are taken from homework or lecture examples, and he genuinely wants his students to do well. One downside is his lectures are a little theoretical, and he mostly derives equations and sometimes gets confused when people ask questions. If you can get Rayner as your TA do so, he is the goat. Plan to attend lecture in person also, he has cool demonstrations that aren’t captured on the bruincast.
Most Helpful Review
Fall 2016 - It was an awesome experience. Professor Jiang's lecture is quite clear, interesting and helpful. The homework is well-designed, some of them challenging but definitely can improve your skills. The test is fair: she gave us practice tests and they help a lot. The best thing is that Professor Jiang has SUPER LONG OH EVERYDAY. You can ask her any questions from the textbooks, homework or midterms. I would definitely take other classes taught by her in the future!
Fall 2016 - It was an awesome experience. Professor Jiang's lecture is quite clear, interesting and helpful. The homework is well-designed, some of them challenging but definitely can improve your skills. The test is fair: she gave us practice tests and they help a lot. The best thing is that Professor Jiang has SUPER LONG OH EVERYDAY. You can ask her any questions from the textbooks, homework or midterms. I would definitely take other classes taught by her in the future!
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Most Helpful Review
Professor Kusenko is by far one of the best professors in the department. His midterms and finals are completely open book and open note. He is willing to comprise with students on various issues related to the course. He is extremely nice and easily approachable. He makes lectures interesting and fun. His grading system is also very easy: splits the class into 3rds and and assigns A's, B's, and C's accordingly, you really have to try hard to not pass the class. Highly recommend this professor, if he is available, take him. All in all he is just a great guy.
Professor Kusenko is by far one of the best professors in the department. His midterms and finals are completely open book and open note. He is willing to comprise with students on various issues related to the course. He is extremely nice and easily approachable. He makes lectures interesting and fun. His grading system is also very easy: splits the class into 3rds and and assigns A's, B's, and C's accordingly, you really have to try hard to not pass the class. Highly recommend this professor, if he is available, take him. All in all he is just a great guy.
Most Helpful Review
This professor is, quite honestly, the worst professor I've had at UCLA. I'll be very honest in evaluating him. How he "teaches": Malkan does not teach. He simply walks to the front of the class and literally blabs nonsense for about 30 minutes, and then fills up the rest of the class period doing pointless demonstrations. Remember guys, we're no longer in high school, and since you don't have to go to class, I think time-wasting demonstrations are perfectly useless. In terms of the material, I can only say the following; with one of the TAs as my witness, he once spent 40 MINUTES discussing how to calculate electric flux through a surface - about the equivalent of discussing how to calculate force given mass and acceleration. He spends a ridiculous amount of time on very simple concepts, leading many of his students to believe his tests will be just as easy. How he tests: However, if he tested the same as he taught, everyone would get 100%. So he goes and takes tests he hasn't written (typically from Professor Cowley) and then tests you on material which is appropriate to the level that the class SHOULD be taught. Most people had a terribly difficult time with this though, because they learned from the lectures. What to do if you decide to take him: Don't go to class, but learn how to do all the type II problems in the book. I attended most of the lectures prior to the first midterm and did well, attended perhaps 25% of the lectures prior to the second midterm and did very very well, and attended 2 lectures prior to the final. And it worked, simply because I learned from the book (which by the way, he likes to bash for "including everything"). This professor is good for you if: 1) You are good at studying alone. 2) You don't wish to learn more physics than is necessary for just that class.
This professor is, quite honestly, the worst professor I've had at UCLA. I'll be very honest in evaluating him. How he "teaches": Malkan does not teach. He simply walks to the front of the class and literally blabs nonsense for about 30 minutes, and then fills up the rest of the class period doing pointless demonstrations. Remember guys, we're no longer in high school, and since you don't have to go to class, I think time-wasting demonstrations are perfectly useless. In terms of the material, I can only say the following; with one of the TAs as my witness, he once spent 40 MINUTES discussing how to calculate electric flux through a surface - about the equivalent of discussing how to calculate force given mass and acceleration. He spends a ridiculous amount of time on very simple concepts, leading many of his students to believe his tests will be just as easy. How he tests: However, if he tested the same as he taught, everyone would get 100%. So he goes and takes tests he hasn't written (typically from Professor Cowley) and then tests you on material which is appropriate to the level that the class SHOULD be taught. Most people had a terribly difficult time with this though, because they learned from the lectures. What to do if you decide to take him: Don't go to class, but learn how to do all the type II problems in the book. I attended most of the lectures prior to the first midterm and did well, attended perhaps 25% of the lectures prior to the second midterm and did very very well, and attended 2 lectures prior to the final. And it worked, simply because I learned from the book (which by the way, he likes to bash for "including everything"). This professor is good for you if: 1) You are good at studying alone. 2) You don't wish to learn more physics than is necessary for just that class.
Most Helpful Review
Summer 2020 - Really sweet and caring professor. The class was super quick because it was summer session but she did offer a great grading scheme which was predominantly problem sets (2 a week) and added little over 2% as EC opportunity. Additionally, the class was NOT CURVED, so your grade was entirely dependent on your ability to solve physics problems (which were a little ambiguous and confusing at times on the midterms). Still highly recommend for Physics 1B considering how hard the class usually is through the year.
Summer 2020 - Really sweet and caring professor. The class was super quick because it was summer session but she did offer a great grading scheme which was predominantly problem sets (2 a week) and added little over 2% as EC opportunity. Additionally, the class was NOT CURVED, so your grade was entirely dependent on your ability to solve physics problems (which were a little ambiguous and confusing at times on the midterms). Still highly recommend for Physics 1B considering how hard the class usually is through the year.
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